I found it hard to resist a restaurant touting something called “Hawaiian Barbecue.” My attraction to barbecue is magnetic – something organic and beyond my control, rather than willful – with styles I haven’t tried drawing me in with more power than, say, another round of baby-backs.
I’d never even heard of Hawaiian barbecue. So I fixated upon 8island Hawaiian Barbecue in Boulder the first time I saw the place, sometime last winter.
A few weeks ago, my destiny with Hawaiian barbecue finally came to pass.
Appropriately, 8island fills a slot in a strip mall. That’s where barbecue places belong unless they are in something ramshackle and cinder block.
Many of the items on the menu have nothing to do with barbecue, at least with what we on the mainland consider barbecue. Chicken cutlets? Raw tuna? Spam sushi? Not so barbecue.
But the kalua pork?
Barbecue.
I don’t know if they smoke their own pork shoulder, or if they use Liquid Smoke (most recipes call for Liquid Smoke), but the pile of moist, salty, shredded pork came shrouded in the flavor of hickory, and I don’t care how they achieved the flavor. It rocked. It came with a mound of rice, and the two simple ingredients – shredded pork, white rice – did wonders for each other.
Accompanying the pork, too, was a side of macaroni and cheese, a style of the dish that, apparently, is ubiquitous in Hawaii. It was creamy more than cheesy, and I could have inhaled an entire bowl of the stuff.
Like some of their signature dishes, kalua pork is a special, available on Fridays only.
Another Friday-only special was “fresh ahi poke with ogo,” and this dish had absolutely nothing to do with barbecue, but it didn’t matter. The cubes of raw tuna, sweet onion, ogo seaweed and cilantro is the kind of combination people will crave.
The puleho beef – basically, beef marinated in teriyaki sauce and grilled – was excellent. The paniolo kal-bi – beef short rib marinated in soy sauce and grilled – was even better. I was particularly fond of the ribs’ charred taste. I also appreciated the pepperiness of the S&P kahuku shrimp, which was shrimp slathered in salt and ground pepper.
The kids liked the chicken katsu – breaded chicken cutlets with a sweet-and-savory dipping sauce – and I liked it, too, in part because the crust was very firm and crunchy.
My attraction to the idea of Spam musubi was not magnetic. More like culinary rubbernecking.
Spam wrapped with seaweed. Not exactly PB&J.
But not bad, either.
Staff writer Douglas Brown can be reached at 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com.
8island Hawaiian
Barbecue
Hawaiian Barbecue|3050 28th St., Boulder, 303-440-7427|$1.50-$9.95
|Monday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-11 p.m.; MC, Visa, AMEX; parking.
Front burner: Great shredded pork and marinated tuna on Fridays; interesting options throughout the week.
Back burner: The flavorings, overall, can go a bit heavy on the sweetness.
